Gorgeous George

It was George Carlin. That's who I wanted to blog about after Pilot blogged about Strombo.

I had just watched a couple of his stand up routines. One was a VERY old one from probably the 60's or 70's. He looked in his early 30's and was hardly recognizable. It was good stuff. Nothing special, but he had some solid jokes and I found it funny,

Then I watched one of his ones from the 90's. Most people have seen clips, but I had never sat down and watched a special. I wasn't very impressed. Someone commented generally on Reddit that if the crowd is just clapping and cheering, then it isn't really comedy. They aren't laughing. And yeah, good point, but who cares? If people are enjoying the show, that's all that matters.

I think if I had been at one of his shows in the 90's I would have cheered with everyone else. Nowadays though, it was a little meh. He got uncomfortably close to the line with some of his comments, but didn't cross so I'm OK with that. I won't rag on him, especially since I've been known to cross that line and throw many babies into a blender myself. Him impersonating a black person saying "I hear that, I hear that." is more just not funny than it is crossing any line.

Or bitching about how people carry water bottles everywhere instead of just drinking water at home before they leave. Oh, you got us Georgie.

Like I said, I wasn't overly impressed. It was very much "old man yells at cloud." Part of that is our generation tries to steer away from that more than others. I've watched many other comedians make comments on society and I think all were better than his.

Now, watching some classic Rodney Dangerfield on Carson? THAT was hilarious. Just makes fun of everyone equally, except piling even more on himself. But I don't know if I can respect that....